Winnie the Pooh Wallpaper
by Daughter of Hypnos
Summary: Stress I would have been prepared for. The flu I would have been prepared for. The common cold I would have been prepared for. This I wasn't prepared for. Based on the look on Carter's face he wasn't either. I couldn't believe a simple doctors visit had turned into this. Zarter.
1. Chapter 1

I love Carter, I really do, but he can be very over protective. I had let it slip that I hadn't been feeling well and he instantly insisted that I go to the doctors. I was probably jut stressed, and missing a day at work for no reason would only add to the stress.

Regardless, I still ended up sitting in a doctors office with nothing to do but read faded, old posters about symptoms of the Measles and the importance of Mammograms.

The doctor, a young blond woman who reminded me of Jaz, had asked me all the basic questions and symptoms, took my blood pressure, and (embarrassingly) had me pee in a cup.

She left the room to rune a few tests and left Carter and I alone, him sitting in a chair, me sitting up on the paper-covered bed. I looked at Carter, who looked like he was reading the poster on the wall about flu shots, absent-mindedly fiddling with his wedding ring. We had been married for two years, but this was the first time I was sick, and I don't think he really knew what to do.

"Carter," He looked up, "calm down."

He smiled, looking down at the ground. "Sorry. I'm just nervous."

"I'm sure it's nothing, probably just stress or sleep deprivation." I assured him. He jumped up onto the bed to sit next to me, making the paper underneath us crinkle loudly.

He took my hand, "I just want you to be okay." He said quietly then he leaned in and kissed me softly. Things had been stressful for the last few weeks for us. Between real jobs and trying to run Brooklyn house without actually living at Brooklyn house, we hadn't had time to 'do' anything in the last few weeks. I missed him. Unfortunately, a small doctors office that smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol wasn't sexy.

"I'm sure nothing's wrong. And what ever it, we can handle it." I kissed him this time.

He jumped down off the bed and sat back down in his chair, smiling, and holding my hand, playing with my wedding ring now.

A few minutes of silence passed, and then the doctor came back in, smiling.

"Congratulations Mrs. Kane, you're pregnant."

**Chapter 1 of a short Zarter fix. I have no plan, so I'm kind of making this up as I go. But I promise it will be good. **


	2. Chapter 2

I honestly should have seen this coming. Everything added up, all the symptoms were there, I could actually pinpoint the night it happened. And it was the last thing that I had expected. I would have expected the flu, or a cold, or stress but not this.

I sat there dumbfounded. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Carter looked the same way.

"I'll just leave you two here for a few minutes to talk about things." The doctor said before walking out.

I turned to look at Carter. When he looked at me, his face split into a huge grin. "I'm gonna be a dad!" He screamed. He grabbed me and dragged me off the bed, pulling me into a hug. Then he looked down and put his hands on my still-flat stomach, and smiled even bigger. Seeing his reaction made me smile, too. He hugged me again, this time picking me up and swinging me around. Then he kissed me hard.

When he saw I wasn't reacting as enthusiastically as he was he frowned. "Aren't you happy?" He asked.

"I guess I just didn't expect this. But I'm happy." I told him. I looked down at my stomach as the reality of what we had just been told set in. I'm going to be a mom, I thought. Carter and I are going to have a baby.

"Oh my gods." I smiled almost as big as Carter and put my hand over my face. I really was pregnant.

The two of us had talked about having kids before and decided that for a few years we wouldn't really try, but that if it happened we would still be happy. I just don't think either of us ever expected it to happen.

Carter (who looked like he was going to cry, dork.) kissed the top of my head. I smiled again and let out a small laugh as the doctor came back in.

She pulled a piece of paper off her clip bored, "Here is a referral to an OBGYN. You should make an appointment with them soon to make sure the baby is healthy. Congratulations you two."

When we got home Carter pulled me into the bedroom and, um, tried to make a twin.

Later that night, I found myself tossing and turning, sleep escaping me. "What if you can't do this?" A little voice in my head asked, "you don't know the first thing about being a mother."

I rolled over and stood up, deciding I needed some air. I grabbed Carter's old brown sweatshirt that he gave me when we first started dating and pulled it over my head, and made my way to the fire escape. The mid-October air was nearly freezing at night, especially, being so close to the river. I always hated the cold.

I wasn't out there for thirty seconds before I heard Carter behind me. "Zia, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just needed some air." I told him.

"You know, I've always been able to tell when you're lying to me." He said, walking up next to me.

"Well, you should work on it because I'm not lying." I told him defiantly, still looking out over the river.

"Yes, you are. Really, what's wrong?" He looked at me, his features soft and his eyes wide and caring. He had one of those faces that made you want to tell him everything.

I had known carter for nine years, I knew that face; I wasn't getting out of this. I sighed and decided to tell him. "I'm scared." I said quietly.

"Why?" He asked moving closer.

"Because I've never done this before. I don't know how to raise a kid. What if I do something wrong? What if something goes wrong? What if… what if something happens to the two of us and… and what if I'm just not strong enough to do this?"

Carter stood there, silent for a moment and then said: "Zia, you are the strongest person I know. I promise, everything is going to be fine. Let's go back inside before we catch pneumonia." Why did he have to be such a goddamn good person?

I called the OBGYN in the morning and made an appointment for the next week. In the mean time, I looked up the vitamins you were supposed to take during pregnancy and all the things you shouldn't have. Sometimes I would look down, expecting to see this huge baby bump, but it was still just me. It was really hard to believe that I was going to have a baby.

We hadn't told anyone yet, we wanted to wait and make sure everything was fine before telling people. Finally, the day came. Carter and I were sitting in a different doctors office, surrounded by posters about pregnancy and new borns. Carter, once again, in a chair next to me, while I sat up in a chair that looked like the ones at the dentist.

The doctor walked in, a man this time. "Hello, I'm Dr. Roberts," He shook our hands. "Is this your first?"

"Yeah," Carter said.

"Well, are you two ready to see your baby?"

He had me lift up my shirt and then squirted some cold, blue jell on my abdomen. He put the scanner of the jell and moved it around. A black and white picture came up on the sonogram. It didn't look like anything, but Dr. Roberts smiled.

"There it is." He said, pointing to a small blob on the screen. I smiled, that was my baby. "Looks like there's only one, hope you weren't trying for twins." We laughed with him. Definitely couldn't handle twins. "Let's see if we can find the heart beat. You only look about six weeks along, sometimes this early into the pregnancy, it can be hard to find."

I got a little nervous. Holding my breath, I felt Carter put his hand over mine. I looked at him and he gave me a reassuring smile and Dr. Roberts moved around my abdomen.

After a few seconds he said: "There it is." There was faint sort of rhythm, it sounded like playing a drum under water. I covered my mouth and tried not to cry. It honestly might sound stupid, but hearing that for the first time is a surreal moment. I could take all the vitamins and look up all the information, but it didn't prove anything. This was the first time I really believed what was happening.

He put down the scanner and started to clean off my stomach. "The baby looks healthy. We'll make an appointment for a few weeks, here is a list of all the do's and don'ts, and some suggested vitamins. Around eighteen to twenty-two weeks, we should be able to tell the sex of the baby, if you want to find out. I'll go print out some sonogram pictures for you."

I took the pre-written list, and tried to remember everything he said in the monologue he probably gives to everybody. Carter stood up and hugged me.

"That was amazing." He said.

I pulled down my shirt, my hand lingering on my stomach for a second. "It really was. Should we start telling people, or should we wait a little longer?"

"Maybe just Sadie and Walt for now."

"We tell Sadie, we might as well tell everyone before she does."

"Good point, maybe we'll wait just a little longer. You should probably tell your boss, though." Carter said. I nodded as Dr. Roberts came back in, handing me the sonogram photos.

When we got back to the apartment, I hung one of pictures on the fridge. It really didn't matter any more if I was strong enough, I really just had to be.

**This felt out of character. Like really, really out of character. And in response to guest review: yeah I know it was obvious. I kind of fail when it comes to making interesting reviles. **


	3. Chapter 3

About a week after the first OBGYN visit, Carter and I were sitting on the couch in our apartment. It was one of those rainy Saturdays where you don't do more than change out of your pajamas.

Because Halloween was this week, ABC Family was having a Harry Potter movie marathon. We were half way through the Order of the Phoenix, and the two of us were locked in an argument about whether or not Voldemort's death could be considered murder. I said that, even though it was justified and save so many lives, it is still killing another person. Carter disagreed.

"What do you think?" Carter asked, lifting my shirt and putting his face close to my, still flat, stomach.

"Ha, you brought it up first, you lose." I told him, triumphantly. After the doctors all our conversation seemed to be made up of was "baby, baby, baby" and after about two days, the last thing we wanted to talk about was "baby." So we made it a contest: unless something was wrong, the first person to bring up the baby lost.

Carter didn't seem phased by his defeat and asked again.

"You know it probably doesn't have ears yet, let alone an opinion on the death of Lord Voldemort." I told him.

"Clumps of cells can have opinions too, Zia." He said, a goofy smile on his face. I pushed him backwards, and he fell backwards dramatically while I laughed at him. I pulled him back up and he pulled up my shirt and asked the same question again.

"Your dad is a dork." I told it.

"Some things never change." Carter said, shrugging his shoulders. He leaned in, about to kiss me, when the door opened.

"Sorry, am I interrupting something?" Sadie asked looking completely un-phased (It definitely wasn't the most embarrassing position she had caught us in.) "I come bearing gifts of Pizza!" Giving her key to the apartment had its ups and downs.

She put the box on the kitchen table as we walked into the kitchen.

"Can I grab something to drink?" She asked, even though she didn't wait for an answer. She grabbed a glass and went to the fridge. She was about to open it when something caught her eye.

I started dashing out the pizza when she walked over, sonogram picture in hand. "You guys, maybe wanna explain?" She asked. She sounded angry and annoyed, like we had committed treason for not telling her right away.

Carter and I looked at each other; neither of us knew what to do.

"Zia's pregnant." Carter said simply.

Sadie looked confused, so Carter kept going: "Yeah, you know, we weren't really expecting it, but we've been married for a few years, I guess it was just bound to happen. We wanted to wait to tell people, you know to make sure everything was okay."

Sadie still stood there, the same expression on her face. "Are you okay?" Carter asked.

"I'm just still in shock that anyone would want to sleep with you, let alone, have your children."

Carter and I gave her similar offended looks. "Oh come on, I'm kidding." She said before grabbing Carter and hugging him. "Congratulations!" She nearly. "I can't believe you two are gonna have a baby!" She squealed before hugging me.

"But we aren't telling people yet." Carter told her. She pouted a little.

"Fine have it your way, but oh my gods! You are gonna have a baby!"

Lunch was filled with nothing but Sadie talking about "baby." I was highly considering letting her in on the contest.

After about two hours of nonstop Sadie talk, she left. The marathon was well into The Half Blood Prince at this point. Carter and I ignored the missed parts and sat back down on the couch and watched the rest of the movies.

Later that night we were both lying down in bed on our sides facing each other. We were just talking about anything, laughing and telling stories. Carter was telling me about how Felix had a girlfriend now, and I was laughing at his interpretation of him.

When the conversation died and we were about to go to sleep, Carter smiled at me. There was nothing really different about it; it was just more intoxicating than usual. "I love you," I told him, shocked at how rarely I tell him that. "I really don't tell you that enough."

"What are you talking about, you tell me that all the time."

"No, you tell me and I say it back. I never say it first."

"Well, that's how things work, you kiss me first I tell you 'I love you' first."

I leaned forward and kissed him, proving his point. "See, it's a great arrangement." He said giving me that same smile.

I ran my fingers through his hair, thinking about what he said earlier: "Some things never change." Our relationship had definitely changed over the years, we had definitely changed, but there were some parts of us, and our relationship that would always stay the same.

Carter rolled over to his side, lying on his back. I moved close to him, resting my head on his bare chest. He wrapped his arm around me, and it was like we were seventeen years old, back in Brooklyn House.

**Still working on figuring out how to write Zia's character. I think I'm getting closer. There probably won't be too many more chapters: mostly just finding out the sex of the baby, baby names, decorating the nursery (guess how they're gonna decorate it), and then the birth, and probably and epilogue. Don't be too shocked if this doesn't get passed 10 chapters. **

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	4. Chapter 4

After Armageddon, Carter was named pharaoh, the king. When we got married, I was made his queen. Most people, when they think of the queen of Egypt (or at least the magical world) probably don't picture a twenty-six year old sitting at her kitchen table in her apartment in Brooklyn, typing an angry email to a magician in Germany.

Carter and I didn't have normal 9-5 jobs like the rest of the world. We both worked from about 8am to 8pm working with people from all over the world to make sure things continued to run smoothly. Carter and I constantly had to be in different parts of the world (portal hopping, he called it). Some days I would bring home dinner from France, some days he would bring home authentic Chinese food.

The only reason we did this was because it was so much easier solving problems and checking up on people when you saw them in person. Today, because time zones could get tricky, I stayed home.

Just because I didn't have a 9-5 day job, didn't mean that the rest of the world didn't. Unfortunately, doctors fit into that category of people who work normal hours.

It was four weeks after the initial discovery, now I was at ten weeks, meaning another doctors appointment. In about twelve hours.

It was four in the morning; I could here Carter snoring from the kitchen. I hate time zones. The woman who runs the German Nome isn't too happy with me for "refusing" to come and help her with what ever it is that's wrong. The woman seemed to be highly irrational and unforgiving, refusing to see me now. This argument has been well documented in the span of email that we have exchanged, which has reached roughly the length of a short Russian novel.

I rubbed my eyes out of frustration and tiredness. I started typing my response to her again when I heard a voice from behind me: "What do you get when you put two of the most stubborn woman in the world together in an argument?" I spun around (my reflexes hadn't gone away over the years.) Carter jumped back, narrowly avoiding being thrown across the room. He walked back over to me as I turned around to face the computer again. He put both his hands on either one of my shoulders and leaned in close to my ear. "You get my wife angrily typing to some equally angry German at four a.m."

"Hehe, You're so funny Carter." I told him sarcastically. He left his hands on my shoulders, but moved his head so he was standing behind me.

"How long have you been up?"

"'Bout a half hour."

"What time did you get to sleep?"

"10:30? 11 maybe." I said still typing, trying to talk some sense into this woman. She hasn't even told me what the problem is.

"You need sleep." Carter told me.

"I need to prevent World War III."

"I'm not sure if you were using the work War III cliché, or if you making fun of her because she's German. But it doesn't matter; just come back to bed."

I kept typing defiantly, I was not the happiest person at 4:07 in the morning. "Both and not until I'm done."

Carter closed the laptop so swiftly I barely had time to pull my hands away.

"You need to sleep. I try and get over there today after I seem Amos."

"Thanks." I told him then went back to opening my laptop, which he shut again.

"Come on," He said, "I have three hours before I have to get up, at least let me enjoy them."

Carter pulled me up, not with out a fight though (he very nearly threw me over his shoulder.) We got to our room and I crawled under the blankets, still thinking of ways to respond to this awful woman. I had met magicians from the German Nome before, and they had all be much better to work with. This woman, though, was a demon.

"Stop thinking about it." Carter said. He was lying on his side, facing me, but his eyes were closed.

"How did you know I was thinking about it?"

"When you're thinking you lie on your back, when you're sleeping, you lay on your side." He said lazily. "Just give up and go to sleep, you have all day tomorrow." He said, suppressing a yawn.

Sometime between then and 7am I fell asleep so quickly I don't even remember it happening.

I stood in our room that morning after getting out of the shower, about to get dressed; Carter was in the bathroom. I let my towel fall and began getting ready. I was about to put on my shirt when something caught my eye.

I stood sideways, facing the full-length mirror we had in the corner. Every day I had begun gradually and gradually showing more. But today seemed like the first day you could really notice. I mean, if you didn't know I was pregnant, which most people still didn't, I just looked like I had gained a few pounds.

"Carter!" I called.

"Bwhut!" He called back.

"Come here!"

He walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and a toothbrush in his mouth. I waved him over to where I was standing.

"Look," I said turning sideways again. He looked at me quizzically, like he had no idea what I was trying show him. "I'm starting to show." I said obviously, pointing at my stomach.

He put up one finger, telling me to hold on. He ran back into he bathroom. I saw him spit out the tooth paste, put the toothbrush on the counter, and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, and then wipe his hand on his towel. Then he ran back and kissed me. He's very easily excited.

"I wish I got to go with you today." He said, standing close to me, with one hand behind my neck, playing with my hair.

"Trust me, there will be plenty more doctors visits. Now let me go." I pulled away from him and pulled my shirt on. Carter hadn't been very happy when he found out that he couldn't come with me today and he had apologized about 157 times. ("I'm sorry." "For what?" "That I can't be there today." "They're just going to do the same thing they did last time." "I just don't like the idea of you being there alone." "Well, I can assure you that I can take care of myself.")

An hour later, the two of us were at Brooklyn house. Carter was going to portal out of there and I was going to spend the day making sure things were running well.

Things hadn't changed at all there, there were just different kids causing the problems. I ended being more of a nanny, running around and trying to help Cleo, Sadie, and Walt keep things in order.

Cleo and I finally got to leave around four; Cleo to get ready for a date with her boyfriend (who Sadie swears is going to propose soon) and me to go to the doctor's.

"Do you really think he's going to propose?" Cleo asked on the subway. Even though she was twenty-three now she was still small and bookish, she really hadn't changed much at all.

"I don't know, I haven't seen you two together enough." I told her.

"Did you see it coming when Carter proposed?" She looked down at her lap and fiddled with her hands.

"Yes, but that's because we talked about it and he's awful at hiding things from me." I told her.

"Alyssa didn't see it coming when Morgan proposed to her."

"So? Everyone's going to have a different experience. Why are you freaking out about it? Do you want to marry David?" that was his name.

"No! I mean, maybe eventually. But I don't want him to get down on one knee tonight or tomorrow, or in a month and expect me to decide my entire life in five seconds." She said quickly.

"So talk to him about it." Zia Kane, therapist extraordinaire.

"I can't, though! What if he thinks I want to get married, or that I'm rushing into things or pressuring him to marry me?"

"That's why you really have to be careful talking about it, make sure you get your point across. But I'm sure he'll understand."

She sighed and stared straight ahead. "It's okay." I said placing one hand awkwardly on her shoulder. Sadie was much better at this type of thing.

After a few minutes of heavy awkwardness, we reached my stop. "I have to go." I told Cleo, grabbing my bag.

"Where are you going?" She asked, it dawning on her for the first time she had no idea where I was suppose to be.

"I have a thing!" I yelled back to her as I got off the subway into a crowed of people.

Dr. Roberts didn't take too long. He ran some basic tests, asked me some questions and then did the ultrasound.

"No husband today?" He asked getting all the stuff together to do the ultrasound.

"No, he was busy."

"What does he do?"

Carter and I were used to these questions and they weren't something you could respond to truthfully. "He does a lot of international work, he travels a lot." I said. The answer was vague enough not to raise suspicion but also gave enough information that there usually weren't many (or any) follow up questions.

"Will he be here for the birth?"

"He'd better be." I said as he started the ultrasound.

A block and white picture showed up on the monitor. Instead of one little black dot like it was the last time, you could actually tell that this was a baby.

"It looks human." I said stupidly, meaning it was starting to look like a baby and not just some practically unnoticeable blob on the screen.

"I would hope it's human." Dr. Roberts joked. He did the same thing as the last time and listened to the heartbeat. "Everything looks and sounds perfect. If you were waiting to tell people, now would be a good time to start." He smiled and turned off the monitor.

I was back home by six and tried to call Carter. Because we moved around so much, finding him via Scrying Bowl would have been too difficult so I tired his cell phone.

"Hello?" He answered, sounding pretty tired.

"Hey, are you going to be home for dinner?" I asked him.

"Hey, Zia, my day was long thanks for asking. Amos? He's good." Carter said, carrying on a conversation with himself.

"Shut up and answer the question."

"Yeah, I'm leaving in few minutes, it's past midnight here." He told me.

"Where are you?"

"Germany, I'll tell you how it went when I get back."

"Okay see you soon." I said; I hung up the phone and started looking for something simple to make for dinner. When I found nothing, I pulled out one of the many take-out menus we had collected.

About an hour later the pharaoh and his queen were eating Chinese take-out in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Our ancestors would be so proud.

"So would you be up for a dinner with the head of the 36th Nome?" He asked before shoving a fork full of rice into his mouth.

The woman who ran the German Nome wanted to see me, and Carter didn't have much of a choice but to accept. I got to spend all of tomorrow with a stubborn German woman. I was ecstatic.

We laid in bed that night, talking about how to tell people that I was pregnant, eventually coming to the conclusion to just tell people a little at a time. As soon as a few people found out it would become a sandstorm, anyway.

Sometime during thinking about the baby and how we are going to tell people, I fell asleep.

I woke up late; Carter was already up and getting ready. "Ready for a day of dealing with people you don't like?" He asked me, getting on the bed and kissing me as I sat up.

"Is there an alternative?" I asked getting up out of bed.

"No."

"Then I guess I am."

* * *

**A/N: So, a few weeks ago I sat down to write this with all these ideas and realized that I was lost in a sea of vague plot details and random dialogue. So I started writing it, hated it, deleted the whole thing, and started over. And repeat about four times. And I'm still not too pleased, but at least now I have an idea of where the story is going to go. **

**So I wanted to thanks im-different-get-over-it for helping a lot thus far. I only bring this up (because I don't usually thank people in my authors notes) because I noticed that she posted on tumblr: "Zia Rashid would never say hehe" #horrible fanfiction #my eyes are bleeding. So I went out of my way to have her say Hehe in this chapter because I'm that kind of person. I'm ending this annoyingly long authors note now. 2222 words. **


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